The number of rural landless
families increased from 35 per cent in 1987 to 45 per cent in 1999, further to
55 per cent in 2005. The farmers are destined to die of starvation or suicide.
Replying to the Short Duration Discussion on Import of Wheat and Agrarian
Distress on May 18, 2006, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar informed the Rajya
Sabha that roughly 1, 00,000 farmers committed suicide during the period
1993-2003 mainly due to indebtedness.

In his interview to The Indian Express on November
15, 2005, Sharad Pawar said: The farming community has been ignored in this
country and especially so over the last eight to ten years. The total
investment in the agriculture sector is going down. In the last few years,
the average budgetary provision from the Indian Government for irrigation is
less than 0.35 percent.

During the post-reform period, India has been shining brilliantly with a growing number of billionaires. Nobody has taken
note of the sufferings of the family members of those unfortunate hundred
thousand farmers.

Further, the proportion of people depending in India on agriculture is about 60 % whereas the same for the UK is 2 %, USA 2 %and Japan 3 %. The developed countries, having a low proportion of population in
agriculture, have readily adopted globalization which favors more the growth of
the manufacturing and service sectors.

About the plight of agriculture in developing
countries, Nobel Prize-winning economistJoseph Stiglitz said: Trade
agreements now forbid most subsidies excepted for agricultural goods. This depresses incomes of those farmers in the developing countries who do not get subsidies. And since
70 per cent of those in the developing countries depend directly or indirectly
on agriculture, this means that the incomes of the developing countries are depressed.But by whatever standard one uses, todays international trading regime is
unfair to developing countries.

He also pointed out: The average
European cow gets a subsidy of $ 2 a day (the World Bank measure of poverty);
more than half the people in the developing world live on less than that. It
appears that it is better to be a cow in Europe than to be a poor person in a
developing country.

It is not known as to why the Finance Minister
demoted the importance of agriculture that has about 90 per cent population
from the second place to the seventh in the annual Economic Survey of the
country. In a way does it symbolize the low importance deliberately given to
the growth of the agriculture sector in the scheme of globalization?

Strategy of Globalization

In the Report (2006) East Asian Renaissance, World
Bank Advisor Dr Indermit Gill stated: Cities are at the core of a development
strategy based on international integration, investment and innovation. East Asia is witnessing the largest rural-to-urban shift of population in history. Two
million new urban dwellers are expected in East Asian cities every month for
the next 20 years. This will mean planning for and building dynamic, connected
cities that are linked both domestically and to the outside world so that
economic growth continues and social cohesion is strengthened.

The market economy seems to be more concerned with
the growth of consumerism to attract the high income groups who are mostly in
the cities in the developing countries. Rural economy and the agricultural
sector were out of focus in the strategy of globalization.